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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Adab as-Salat: The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition Chapter 5: Some Disciplines Of The Wudu’ (Ritual Ablution) In Respect Of The Interior And The Heart Imām ar-Ridā (' a ) is quoted to have said: “The servant has been commanded to perform the Wudu' (ritual ablution) so as to be pure when standing before the All-Powerful and supplicating, and by obeying Him, to be purged from filth and impurity, beside his removing laziness, expelling sleep and purifying the heart to stand in the Presence of the All-Powerful.

Confining it (the Wudu' ) only to the face, the two hands, the head and the two feet, was because when the servant stands before the All-Powerful, the parts which are exposed are those which are ordered to be washed in the Wudu' : as with his face he performs the sujūd (prostration), with his hands he requests, desires, dreads and supplicates, with his head he inclines to Him in his rukū' (bowing down) and his sujūd , and with his legs he stands and sits…”[^1] Up to here he explained the principal point in the Wudu' , informing the people of knowledge and sulūk that to stand in the holy Presence of Allah, the Glorified and Most High, and to offer supplication to the Provider of Needs, require certain disciplines which should be observed.

One must not appear in His Presence even with the external filths and impurities and with a sleepy eye, let alone with a heart, which is filled with dirts, and it is afflicted with spiritual impurities, which are the origin of all impurities.

Despite the fact that a narrative says: “Allah, the Exalted, does not look at your faces, but He looks at your hearts,”[^2] and despite the fact that the means with which man attends to Allah, the Exalted, and what is, in the worlds of creation, worthy of looking at His Majesty, Greatness and Glory, is the heart, while the other organs have no share in it, yet, they did not neglect the outer cleanliness.

So, they decided the external purification for cleaning man's exterior, and the inner purification for cleaning his interior. In this noble hadīth , it is clear from assigning the purification of the heart to be a result of the Wudu' that the Wudu' has an interior with which man's interior is purified, and meanwhile it appears that there is a connection between the exterior and the interior, the visible and the invisible.